A. Field
This invention relates generally to communications between wireless communications devices (cell phones, personal digital assistants, laptop computers with wireless modems, and the like) and network entities on a packet switched network. More particularly, it relates to a method for automatically prompting a wireless device to capture media (preferably with a media capture mechanism included with the device) and send the media over a radio access network to a receiving network node on a packet switched network.
B. Related Art
It is generally known today for wireless communication devices (WCDs), such as cell phones and wirelessly equipped computing devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptop computers to be able to engage in wireless packet-data communications and to thereby wirelessly send and receive messages and other content from land-based network entities. A wireless service provider, for instance, may provide a radio access network (RAN) and packet-data serving node (PDSN) that cooperatively establish wireless packet-data connectivity between a WCD and a packet-switched network such as the Internet or a private packet network.
In usual practice, a WCD initiates acquisition of a packet-data connection by sending a packet-data origination message over an air interface access channel to the carrier's RAN. In response, the RAN then assigns an air-interface traffic channel for use by the WCD, and the RAN signals to a packet data serving node (PDSN) or other gateway, which negotiates with the WCD to set up a data link layer connection. In addition, the gateway or a mobile-IP home agent assigns an IP address for use by the WCD to engage in packet-data communications. The WCD may then communicate with other entities on the packet-switched network in much the same way as a traditional personal computer would, except that the WCD would communicate over a wireless air interface and via the RAN.
One difficulty with this kind of arrangement is that, depending on configuration, it typically precludes pushing of packet-data communications to a WCD, i.e., sending of packet-data to a WCD without the WCD initially requesting the data. Rather, in order for a WCD to receive packet-data, the WCD must usually first acquire packet-data connectivity and then request the data. For instance, to receive content from a particular URL, the WCD must first acquire packet-data connectivity and then send an HTTP request seeking content from that URL.
One well-accepted way to overcome this limitation is to send a specially-coded data-notification message over an air interface control channel to the WCD, such that the WCD receives the data-notification message without needing to acquire packet-data connectivity. The data-notification message may take the form of an SMS message of the type defined by industry standard protocol published as EIA/TIA IS-637 for instance, carrying a special code that designates it as a data notification message and carrying a URL of a network location where the data to be delivered is stored. Upon receipt of such a data-notification message (and detection that it is such a message), the WCD may then automatically acquire data connectivity and send an HTTP request to obtain the data from the designated URL.
Systems that deliver data in this manner go by various names, such as “WAP Push” and, more recently, “Multimedia Messaging Service” (MMS) (which actually uses WAP Push technology). These techniques are known in the art and described in the relevant standards documents and associated technical literature, therefor a detailed description is omitted for the sake of brevity. MMS messaging, for instance, is commonly used to send media such as digital images or video clips to a WCD. MMS architecture is described generally in the document WAP MMS Architecture Overview, Version 25 Apr. 2001, published by the Wireless Application Protocol Forum, Ltd., the contents of which are incorporated by reference herein.
To send an MMS message to a WCD, for instance, a server or other message-sender delivers to an MMS server an MMS message file that contains an MMS header followed by a multipart binary MIME message defining the content. The server then stores the MMS message and transmits a subset of the MMS header as an MMS notification message (MMS message type “m-notification-ind”) via SMS to the WCD together with a URL pointer to a location of the complete message on the MMS server. Upon receipt of the MMS notification message, program logic on the WCD would then automatically send an HTTP request to download the message from the designated URL.
Thus, it is known for the WCD station to present a pop-up message to a user and, typically after user consent, to then go to the designated URL (i.e., send an HTTP message to the URL) to get the content. That process facilitates “pushing” content to the mobile station.
The present invention provides methods by which a WCD may be automatically prompted to transmit media content (e.g., audio recording such as voice, or photographs or video imagery) to a network node. In contrast to the above-described content “push” methods, the present invention may be considered a sort of “pull” method since it “pulls” content from the device instead.
Fraccaroli, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2002/0137528 dated Sep. 26, 2002, describes a method by which digital images created by a mobile station are provided to an assistance center, such as a “911” type emergency dispatch center. The image is created automatically upon initiation of a request for assistance from the assistance center at the mobile station. While the '528 patent application discloses a method of sending media from a wireless device to an assistance center, it does not contemplate or suggest a network entity automatically providing prompts or other input to stimulate generation of media content and transmitting the content from the mobile station to a network node, and thus does suggest features of this invention. Nor does it contemplate a system in which a messaging service node managed by a wireless service provider provides media capture messaging services for unrelated entities, e.g., insurance companies or health care companies.